Joyce Carol Oates

I liked her piece on Shirley Jackson in the new NYRB: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/shirley-jackson-in-love-death/

I am a huge Jackson fan and not much of an Oates fan

thx for posting, that gets p grim

"We assumed she had taken a bunch of pills to get even with me," Sally said. "We used to do that kind of mother-daughter stuff."

i read them & mulvaneys

both p underwhelming imo, maybe each trying for too much in scope

each have compelling portions, in 'them' the stretch w jules & nadine works beautifully, has a bonnie & clyde feel

& in 'mulvaneys' near the end the dad, so far gone from alcoholism as to barely be able to think or communicate coherently when his son comes to visit him is incred;

btw i also watched the lifetime movie of 'mulvaneys' which was not great, beau bridges cannot really give the depth of character needed, though i imagine as a lifetime production it wasnt expected either

i don't read short stories that much. is the trilogy that begins with garden of earthly delights good? i just ordered that for 11 cents.

― harbl, Wednesday, May 26, 2010 5:34 PM (seven years ago)

i am finally reading this 11 cent book i got in 2010

It's been on my bookshelf all year without being read. I thought Black Girl, White Girl was terrific and Blonde was a masterpiece, but the last one I read (The Accused, a terrible attempt at a historical gothic campus novel) was dreadful and appears to have put me off.

did I already say she's incredibly unlikable and unpleasant in person? (scanning thread...) yes I did. Just the worst.

tell us every unpleasant thing she did. i'm bored.

eh, she was just really snotty. the program was nice enough to have our friend go give her a ride to this benefit, treated him like a driver (as in, didn't talk to him, ask him questions, etc...this is a young writer, you'd think she'd try to pretend to be friendly); then she came to the benefit, said one thing, and then told him to drive her home. but she didn't really tell him, she waved her hand at him like, "come, servant". he drove her home and she left garbage in his car and didn't say goodbye.

If she married Ta-Nehisi Coates she could be Joyce Carol Oates-Coates

reading a bio on her, p good

Instead she was forced to take dull, poorly taught seminars in Old English and sixteenth-century British literature. In the latter course Joyce was criticized by the professor, Merritt Hughes, for writing an essay on Spenser and Kafka, 'because he hadn't read Kafka; had no idea who Kafka was; but felt quite certain that Kafka wasn't important.' (Kafka, like Nietzsche, remained one of Joyce's literary idols; she later wrote that during her college years, 'I was Franz Kafka for a while.')

finished 'what i lived for'

excellent.. similar to 'blonde' a bit imo w its level of introspection, 1 man's internal monologue & set only over a long holiday weekend; spoiler but not really ~ tragic corky will never collect his winning bets on the '92 jays

heres a good review - https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/he-could-not-tell-a-lie.html

this was good btw

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-unruly-genius-of-joyce-carol-oates

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/16/magazine/joyce-carol-oates-interview.html

The only book of hers I've read is an early one, A Garden of Earthly Delights. I thought it got off to a very slow start and gradually picked up steam. I didn't feel compelled to read the rest of the books in the quartet, though. Maybe someday.

I've never read anything of hers but I loved that interview. Very inspiring. Surprising she's not more of a feminist icon — survived two husbands, no kids, life totally devoted to The Work — but maybe her actual writing harms her reputation in that regard.

Whatever I managed to read of hers was usually pretty good, but maybe she just wrote too much and these days is kind of weighing in on matters on social media in a way I don’t need to know about. As I recall Martin Skidmore was a big fan, maybe he appears upthread.

I most remember her for those four early novels - The Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People, them, and Wonderland.

There have been so many since, but I don't think I've read any of them except for You Must Remember This and What I Lived For

I like her posts on twitter, they are really heartfelt and as somebody said, swing for the fences

haha I was so harsh on her above, and it's true that she was very unpleasant, but I also love her on twitter (for being unpleasant, half the time).

Joyce Carol Oates’s Relentless, Prolific Search for a Self
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/27/joyce-carol-oates-profile